That's why I asked about making some cables myself using magnet wire or other cable recommendations. I would never buy the $10/ft anti-cables. I know some people who buy into the hype and swear by using expensive cables. There seems to be no convincing them otherwise.
I read some of the Audioholics reviews on speaker cabling and one of the reviews recommended Blue Jeans cables or Impact Acoustics. I've used Blue Jeans cables, IXOS, and some Home Depot 14 gauge wire. What do you recommend for speaker cables?
I posted this yesterday- "I have used Monster, Liberty, Planet Waves, Stinger, AudioQuest (I hate terminating their stuff, too), Phoenix Gold, Honeywell's Genesis, and other brands that I can't remember." but I'll add Belden, West Penn (now part of Belden), Esoteric and Nakamichi to the list. Some are a royal PITA to work with, like Monster speaker wire with the soft white jacket. It catches on things and tears, the actual insulation is very soft and not durable at all.
I read the Ixos links and what they say about the conductors crossing at almost right angles. I have seen no other brand of commercial/pro cabling that does this, either for speaker or interconnect cabling. I have heard about braiding wires to minimize noise pickup but in the end, twisted pair ends up being quieter because of its ability to cancel "common mode" noise which is basically the magnetic field from the noise on one conductor canceling the magnetic field from the noise on the other conductor. Braiding the wires doesn't let this happen. I used one set of Ixos interconnects and was not impressed by the materials, at all. Braided wires, a translucent white nylon braided mesh cover and no-name XLR ends, with a retail price of $400/6ft pair. The old Audio Technica mic cables I used first sounded just as good and they're 25' long. That test was blind on my part because I had no idea what was being used and I specifically told the other person to change them when he wanted, or not.
The cabling I prefer has a Teflon jacket, which glides over whatever it comes in contact with. The insulation is strong and tough, the wire strands are fine and that makes it more flexible. Also, the insulation shouldn't melt and swell when soldering, unlike Monster. Granted, they didn't spec it for soldering and in that respect, it's a wild success. I will never try to solder that stuff again. Genesis, Liberty, Stinger, the wire sold by Jamo and Belden are good brands. I install for a living and can't afford to screw around with cabling that wastes my time and money, so I, and many others in my position will generally use one main brand because we can rely on it and if we get better pricing when we buy enough.
As I said, I don't think I have heard any speaker cable that was noticeably/drastically better sounding than others unless the worse sounding one(s) were inadequate gauge or had some other problem.
Something I have written, posted and said many times before- we will never hear the music the same as it was in the studio or mastering room. We don't have the same room, equipment, acoustics or anything else that could allow this. All we can do is try to find equipment that sounds good to us. Sometimes, we get lucky and find a great piece that makes the music seem more real than we think possible. Sometimes, we find equipment that all but disappears when we're listening and when that happens, we have to consider our efforts a success. I play guitar and have been absolutely blown away by how real some recordings sound coming through my system. My guitar amp is very close to my stereo speakers and there are times when it almost sounds too real, if you know what I mean.
The point that speaker wire carries a higher current signal and it's less susceptible to noise pickup and other factors is a good one. If we can hear the difference between one cable and another, it's probably because we want to and that's exactly why double blind testing is so important. If we know what the choices are, we'll usually have a preconceived notion about at least one of them.
I think the main reason the brands you listed are recommended here is that tehy're basically good cable/plugs/etc and the price isn't unreasonable. They aren't more marketing than substance and in 30+ years in htis business, I'm about fed up with marketing BS. With all of the sales reps and their promises of vastly improved sound, I can't think of a single cable that did what they said it would. I have chosen some because they were easier to work with, though. Nakamichi audio cable was OK but their RCA plugs didn't like to accept solder, so we switched to Esoteric Audio, which had its own issues. I moved on and we started using AAMP of America's Stinger cables and they were a piece of cake to solder, sounded at least as good as anything else and were reasonably priced. Then, the buyers drank the Monster Kool Aid and our demands were trumped by bean counters.
